THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE: PROCESSES OF EXCLUSION AND INTEGRATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION TO THE STU
• METHODOLOGY
• STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT
• THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE: POLICY CONTEXT
• INEQUALITY, POVERTY AND MARGINALISATION
• EMPLOYMENT AND THE INTEGRATION ECONOMY
• TARGETING DISADVANTAGE AND EXCLUSION
• (i) Area-Based Targeting
• (ii) Categorical Targeting
• DIRECT EMPLOYMENT SCHEMES AND LABOUR MARKET LINKS
• POLICY RESPONSES
• THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE: RATIONALE, DESIGN AND DELIVERY
• RATIONALE AND DESIGN OF THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE
• (i) Eligibility
• (ii) The Integration Economy and the Social Economy
• (iii) Area-Based Partnerships and Local Employment Service
• DELIVERY OF THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE IN THE DULIN INNER CITY PARTNERSHIP AREA
• (i) Key players
• (ii) Eligibility
• (iii) Sponsors/Managing Agents
• (iv) Design and Allocation of Jobs
• (v) Terms and Conditions of Employment
• (vi) Job Placement
• (vii) Current Strategies
• PROFILE OF WTJI WORKERS
• SEX
• AGE
• HOUSEHOLD TYPE
• DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT
• EDUCATION
• EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT
• HOUSING
• HEALTH
• KEY CHARACTERISTICS
• EMPLOYMENT TRAJECTORIES AND ATTITUDES
• LABOUR MARKET STATUS PRIOR TO WTJI
• TRAINING SCHEMES
• ATTITUDE TO THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE
• BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT
• EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCES
• WORKERS HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT
• MARITAL STATUS, HOUSEHOLD TYPE AND HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION
• CHILDREN
• HOUSEHOLD INCOME
• COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
• GAPS IN SERVICE PROVISION
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES
• APPENDICES
• PROFILE OF MANAGING AGENTS
• WTJI JOB CATEGORIES
• THE SURVEYS

1. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

This report presents the results of an evaluation of the design, delivery and outcomes of the Whole-Time Jobs Initiative (WTJI) in the Dublin Inner City Partnership (DICP) area. The WTJI was introduced in 1996 on a pilot basis. It is targeted at people who have been unemployed for five years or more, who are aged over 35 years and who are living in areas of high unemployment. It provides full-time employment for up to three years.

The WTJI offers a potentially radical departure to existing policy responses to social and labour market exclusion which have focused on integration into the private, commercial sector employment. The location of the WTJI in the social economy sector which includes, but is not synonymous with, the community and voluntary sector, charities and non-profit bodies, and which attempts to match labour supply with demand for services to meet previously unmet and new needs, is one of the more notable innovations in public and social policy in recent times. The WTJI as a response to long-term unemployment and labour market exclusion but more broadly to structural problems of polarisation, marginalisation and social exclusion, is highly significant.

This study set out to examine the effectiveness of the WTJI as a response to poverty and social exclusion and as an integrated approach to social and economic development. It measures the extent to, and the ways in which the WTJI has overcome the disadvantages of existing targeted labour market schemes and has successfully included the most marginalised groups. This study entailed evaluating the design and delivery of the WTJI to identify the factors influencing programme outputs (the extent to which policy objectives have been achieved) and outcomes (implications for and impact on the target group, households and the community).

In addition to an evaluation of the efficacy of the WTJI as a programme, the report can be read as a study of urban disadvantaged groups as we present detailed socio-economic profile of workers along a range of dimensions (education, duration of unemployment, employment trajectories, housing, health, income) which are far broader than administrative definitions of exclusion operationalised through eligibility criteria. In establishing a profile of the nature and extent of disadvantage, the study aims to inform the debate about current and future strategies to tackle social exclusion.

Much of the research into the long-term unemployed, as with other disadvantaged groups, has tended to focus on their 'inadequacies' without corresponding attention to their integration within, and their contribution to, their community. It has also focused on individual participants without attention to the social and economic context which informs their decisions and strategies. A key aim of this study therefore was to explore these contexts in which individual workers on the WTJI operate - namely their household units, inter-household relations and community networks. It is by reference to such factors that relational concepts such as exclusion and integration must be measured.

1.1 METHODOLOGY

The research undertaken for this study was primarily qualitative rather than quantitative, but it is empirically based. It combined primary and secondary research methods: surveys and questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and administrative data. Three stages of data collection comprised the empirical basis of the study.

1. A survey was carried out of the 225 workers on the WTJI to establish a socioeconomic profile of participants. This survey is referred to as Workers Survey I throughout this report. A survey was sent out to the managing agents to distribute among the 225 workers in April 1997. The questionnaires were completed in the workplace, collected and returned. Questionnaires were returned for 160 individuals, making a 71 per cent response rate, but ten were not completed to an extent that rendered them usable; 123 had completed every question. Returned questionnaires were given an identity number and recorded by date of birth and gender for future reference (Table A1 Appendix 3 presents returns by managing agents, showing gender breakdown).
2. An in-depth survey of 60 workers was conducted to establish their experiences of the WTJI, attitudes and barriers to economic integration. This survey is referred to as Workers Survey II throughout this report. This was undertaken during September/October 1997 with a view to focusing on their relationship and attitudes to employment, their households and income. From the working base of 123 questionnaires, eighty individuals were selected to complete the second survey. Individuals were selected on the basis of duration of unemployment and educational attainment. The process of contacting the individuals was again undertaken through the managing agents, who were provided with the date of birth and gender of the worker and asked to identify the worker from their records. An explanatory letter outlining the purpose of the second questionnaire was delivered to the worker. Of the 80 workers selected, seventy were in principle willing to take part and 60 individuals eventually completed the questionnaire. As participation in the study was entirely voluntary, permission given by the managing agents for the individuals to take time out of the working day to complete the questionnaire proved to be crucial in obtaining responses. The completion of the questionnaire took place either on work premises or at pre-arranged sessions involving a number of workers. A researcher was present at each of the sessions to explain the purpose of the research, answer any queries and to assist in completing the forms where literacy was an issue.
3. A study of 30 households to establish a profile of workers' households, and the kinship and associational relations between the worker and his/her household and community was conducted. This survey is referred to as the Household Survey throughout this report. This household survey was conducted between January and March 1998. This was designed to explore intra- and inter-household relations and networks. On the basis of the 60 workers who completed the second survey, forty were selected for the household survey. The same method of contacting individuals as the previous surveys was used. It had been intended that the interviews would be carried out in the respondents own home, as a number of questions were relevant to both partners, where this was appropriate. Once the consent of the individuals and their partners had been given relayed via the managing agents - then the research assistants contacted them directly to arrange a date and time. Particular difficulty was encountered in relation to couples with children (category 1), where four out of five workers did not wish their partners to participate at all. These were replaced by others identified from the second survey of workers as fitting into that household type. Table A2 Appendix 3 presents the numbers in each household type who consented to complete the questionnaire. Although forty households were identified, in the event only thirty consented to participate in the household survey.

1.2 STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT

The report is organised into seven sections. The next section outlines the policy context shaping the emergence of the WTJI. Section three focuses on the design and delivery of the WTJI within the DICP area. Section four presents an analysis of the social and economic characteristics of the workers, with particular reference to socioeconomic deprivation. Section five examines workers economic activity (in terms of patterns of work and employment), their attitudes towards training and employment schemes, in particular the WTJI, and, finally, their attitudes towards, and perceptions of barriers to, employment. Section six explores the structure and composition of workers households, their participation in the community, and the identification of issues in local service provision and delivery. The final section summarises, and draws conclusions from, the principal findings of the study and highlights issues relating to the future of the WTJI in the context of the social economy.

2. THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE:POLICY CONTEXT

The introduction and design of the WTJI was influenced by a confluence of factors and considerations. First, it emerged against a broad background of growing and persistent social and economic polarisation and within a political and institutional context that gave higher priority to addressing poverty and social exclusion. Second, it was part of a national policy response which had led to a growing 'integration economy' and which aimed at greater targeting of poverty, disadvantage and exclusion and at the enhancement of local welfare services.

2.1 INEQUALITY, POVERTY AND MARGINALISATION

The past decade has been a period of rapid economic growth characterised by widening wage and income inequality. Since 1987, weekly and hourly wages of the bottom quartile of the population have fallen in relation to median income, while those of the top decile have risen. Earnings have become more unequal for men and women and for younger and older workers. The bottom 10 per cent of workers have fared the worst; their average hourly wage fell from 53 to 45 per cent of the median. In addition to rising wage inequality, the extent of low pay has spread from 20 to 24 per cent of workers since 1987 (O'Hearn, 1998: 131-33). This widening economic inequality in respect of wages is also reflected in income. Whereas GDP has grew at a rate of 4.8 per cent per annum between 1987 and 1996, the real annual growth of disposable income ranged from 0.8 to 2 per cent. Again, though, inequalities have been pronounced: the disposable income of the top forty per cent of households grew twice as quickly as that of the bottom forty per cent (O'Hearn, 1998).

Similarly, the extent of poverty has grown. Since 1987 the proportion of the population in receipt of less than 50 per cent average income has risen from 19 to 21 per cent, while those in receipt of less than 60 per cent average income has grown to 34 per cent. Sixteen per cent of households experience both low income and deprivation (Nolan et al, 1998; O'Hearn, 1998: 136-7).

The risk and incidence of poverty is strongly associated with labour market exclusion. Households headed by an unemployed person comprise the single largest group of households in poverty (37 per cent) - twice the poverty rate of other groups. In the decade from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s, poverty has risen most among households whose head is retired or on home duties. While rising unemployment led to an increase in poverty in the 1980s, the fall in unemployment has not led to a corresponding decrease in poverty for the reason that a significant proportion of new jobs created have been in the high-tech industries, and have been taken up by new job entrants rather than the unemployed.

Thus although mechanisms put in place since 1987 to manage economic growth and share its fruits among the population at large have failed to make any major headway in making a major in-road into, or even halting, the growth of inequality, poverty and social exclusion, these have nonetheless been instrumental in raising up the political agenda the need for policies and strategies which directly address poverty and social exclusion. Thus, the institutionalisation of Social Partnership in 1987 entailed trade unions accepting national wage agreements in return for the development of a more social inclusive society which could provide work for its citizens and in 1990, the NESC signaled a shift in the management of unemployment and a commitment to actively promoting employment creation as part of macro-economic policy. For the first time in the history of the State, the national economy was, in rhetoric at least, to be shared rather than suffered.

The reality of the political commitment to 'sharing' economic growth and job creation has been that, over this period, labour market exclusion, as measured by the extent of long-term and very long-term unemployment, has remained severe. The long-term unemployed as a percentage of total registered unemployed has remained practically static throughout the 1990s at 57-59 per cent. Unemployment statistics show gender and age differences. In 1996, 63 per cent of unemployed males were long-term unemployed, compared with 49 per cent of women. Long-term unemployment increases with age: 45 per cent of unemployed people aged under 25 years old are long-term unemployed; this rises to 55 per cent for the 25-34 age group, 64 per cent for the 35-44 age group and 70 per cent for those aged over 45 years.

Escape probabilities from unemployment worsen the longer the duration of unemployment: 70 per cent of unemployed people escape unemployment within one year, this drops to 39 per cent if unemployed between 1 and 2 years and to 26 per cent if unemployed for more than two years. Males aged between 45-54 and unemployed for more than two years stand only a 10 per cent chance of escaping unemployment (DEE, 1997). Moreover, escape probabilities have worsened for all sub-groups of the unemployed during the 1990s (table 2.1).

Source: adapted from appendix III, DEE, 1997a: 153. Note: * revised probability if persons from the live register on community employment are added back into the equation.

The commitment to 'sharing' in economic growth has also entailed the introduction of local partnerships aimed at developing area-based strategies for social and economic development and tackling concentrated economic and social disadvantage. These have been instrumental in highlighting long-term unemployment as both a poverty and a social exclusion issue and have pioneered local initiatives and new models to promote inclusive local economic and social development.

Although area-based approaches to tackling poverty and social exclusion have existed for many years, even decades, it has only been very recently that an explicitly anti-poverty strategy at national level has emerged in the form of the National Anti-Poverty Strategy (1997). This forms the centrepiece of the 'social inclusion' chapter in Partnership 2000. Although NAPS is in early stages of implementation, 'poverty proofing' of public services is already underway and NESF (1997) has recommended 'poverty impact' and 'job creation' assessments for labour market measures.

Although an anti-unemployment strategy is not co-terminous with an antipoverty strategy, access to employment is a core principle under the NAPS, which argued that paid employment offers the best route out of poverty. It recommended that paid employment should be available to all men and women currently in poverty who are seeking employment, while for the long-term unemployed a strong public employment service.will be a key element (NAPS, 1997: 11-12). In one sense, NAPS was endorsing the emphasis that has been placed on active labour market policies that have led to the growth of a substantial 'integration' economy during the 1990s and dovetails with the dominant policy emphasis on access to employment in the market sector. However, it has also served to focus greater attention on the inadequacy of public policy towards the long-term unemployed specifically and poverty and social exclusion more broadly and as such provides encouragement to innovative approaches, many of which developed by local partnerships.

2.2 EMPLOYMENT AND THE INTEGRATION ECONOMY

Public employment services have been the primary strand of a strategy to combat long-term unemployment throughout the 1990s. This emphasis on the role of employment programmes is illustrated by table 2.2.

Source: DEE 1997a, table 4.3. (note: figures rounded)

The table shows that employment programmes are the largest of all the labour market programmes, in terms of both throughput and expenditure. Since each additional place on these programmes is counted as a job created and one person less unemployed, the expansion of direct employment schemes, notably Community Employment, in the 1990s has significantly contributed to both the 'jobs machine' and the reduction in unemployment. Since the early 1990s unemployment has fallen by nearly 40 per cent, while employment programmes have doubled in size. One in five new jobs created between 1993-1996 were via employment programmes (Integra, 1996), while five percent of the labour force are participants on public employment schemes.

The possibilities of a strategy of job creation for the long-term unemployed were first raised by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Employment (1992) and was followed up by the National Economic and Social Forum (1994) and the Department of the An Taoiseach (1995). The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Employment strongly favoured job creation via direct employment schemes in the public sector; NESF and the Department of the Taoiseach favoured the location of such jobs in the community and voluntary sectors. From the governments perspective such schemes are useful because they reduce unemployment figures while providing low-cost human resources for community development in disadvantaged areas (Powell and Guerin, 1997). Indeed, as far back as 1990, prior to the increase in places on these, it was recognised that direct employment schemes were the most important resource for community development in Ireland (OCinneide and Walsh, 1990).

During the 1990s, direct employment measures in Ireland have been primarily located within the field of social enterprise or service provision. In addition to providing skills training and personal development courses for scheme participants, community and voluntary organisations have utilised the human resources available to provide local social services. Indeed most (70 per cent) sponsors of such employment schemes are community or voluntary organisations, as favoured by NESF (1994) and the Department of the Taoiseach (1995), although a substantial number of workers have been located in the public sector, particularly in local authorities and in education, as favoured by the Joint Oireachtas Committee (1992). The expansion of direct employment schemes, located in this third sector, has fuelled the emergence of the now substantial 'integration economy'. While, as noted above, this economy has played a key part in recent national economic performance and has provided substantial resources for community development, issues for scheme participants include low-wages and lack of mobility into mainstream employment. The issue of whether such schemes promote inclusion or reinforce marginalisation is discussed at greater length in (iv) below. First, though, the discussion focuses on the emergence, and nature, of targeted policy responses to unemployment.

2.3 TARGETING DISADVANTAGE AND EXCLUSION

The search for more effective responses to social exclusion has been underpinned by targeted interventions which aim to identify and directly address the needs of the poorest and most disadvantaged. Targeting has been both area-based and, more recently, categorical.

2.3(i) Area-Based Targeting

A local dimension to economic and public policy has emerged over the last decade which has attempted to address the spatial outcomes of macro-economic restructuring. This has involved the emergence of targeting cumulative and multiple disadvantage within geographical communities. This emphasis on local development has led to the multiplication of area-based development strategies in both urban and rural areas. More than 150 local partnerships are now in existence, and can be classified into four principal types: local development partnerships, urban regeneration partnerships, local employment and enterprise partnerships and local service partnerships (Walsh, Craig and McCafferty, 1998). These have aimed at reforming service provision for the unemployed and other social excluded groups through interagency co-operation, integrated local planning and community involvement (ibid.: 30).

Although local partnership responses to economic and social exclusion have been a feature of Irish public policy and service provision since the mid 1980s, it was in 1991 that a specific remit to tackle long-term unemployment was defined when, under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, the area-based response to long-term unemployment was established on a pilot basis. Twelve Area-Based Partnerships were set up to coordinate employment services and address the needs of the long-term unemployed and those at risk of long-term unemployment. These were restructured and extended to 38 area-based partnerships. During the 1990s, more local initiatives have emerged - the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (1992), Local Employment Service (1995), local drugs Task Forces (1996), and most recently the pilot Integrated Services Initiative (1998). These co-exist with other local initiatives (e.g. home-school-community liaison, tenant participation in estate management, youth projects) promoted by various government departments, albeit on a smaller scale (Walsh, Craig and McCafferty, 1998).

Overall, local area-based responses have become key to local social and economic development and partnerships have become significant players in their own right in the social exclusion field.

2.3(ii) Categorical Targeting

The growing emphasis on area-based targeting of social and economic disadvantage has been matched by a greater emphasis on targeted interventions to tackle long-term unemployment and address the specific needs of the long-term unemployed. Increasingly, partnerships are developing their own strategies by coordinating the use of national schemes for the purpose of community development.

Categorical targeting emerged as a result of growing dissatisfaction with direct employment schemes as a solution to the needs of the long-term unemployed or as an adequate response to long-term unemployment itself. Despite the expansion of places on direct employment schemes, the long-term unemployed were under-represented on the Social Employment Scheme and Community Employment. The Department of the Taoiseachs Report of the Task Force on Long-Term Unemployment (1995) highlighted the need for a targeted approach to tackling unemployment. The report recognised the different needs of sub-groups within the unemployed and distinguished between five groups for the purposes of future policy: the short-term unemployed (6-12 months) with good employment prospects; short-term unemployed with poor employment prospects; young short-term unemployed with poor employment prospects; long-term unemployed (over 12 months unemployed) with relatively good employment prospects, and the long-term unemployed with poor employment prospects. The Task Force advocated a preventative strategy for groups with good employment prospects and a remedial strategy for the last, most 'problematic', group. It argued that the long-term unemployed in particular were unlikely to benefit from job creation in the private, commercial sector without some 'special intervention to address the specific needs of this group' (p. 11), recommending sponsored employment. For disadvantaged unemployed people (older, unskilled, long-term), when the expected return on training is lower (for reasons of age or school failure), or when the financial need is so urgent that it does not allow for postponed income, direct employment indeed seems a better solution.

2.4 DIRECT EMPLOYMENT SCHEMES AND LABOUR MARKET LINKS

Ireland is an exception in the EU in the sense that it has concentrated on reforming and increasing the number of places on direct employment schemes, while in other countries these have been reduced in scale where it has also been apparent that targeted measures may, at best, reorder the queue of the unemployed rather than create additional net employment and redistribute existing opportunities available to the unemployed, and, at worst, exacerbate the exclusion of the more marginal sectors of the population. Such measures have variously been found to categorise and channel the unemployed into unequally performant schemes and trajectories: 'creaming off' the most employable groups; 'sidetracking' others into dead-end schemes with no outlet into 'open' employment; yielding at most a renewed short-term contract or a reactivation of job search at the end of the contract. The most disadvantaged groups fared the worst on such schemes (De Wachter and Somers, 1989; Room, 1991; Room et al, 1992; Nicaise et al, 1995).

The crux of the problem appears to reside in the design of active labour market measures which are supply-oriented (i.e. which focus on making up the deficits of the unemployed themselves) and which are not demand-led. Local employment initiatives offering training or employment in various activities through 'social workshops' are dependent on subsidies and are more vulnerable to changes in state policy. There is often little prospect of mobility of participants from such 'sheltered' employment into the open labour market as market-orientation tends to be weak. Deliverers of training programmes may end up becoming 'specialists and large providers of low skill trainees' (Nicaise et al, 1995).

The Irish experience has also been one of 'parking' and recycling the unemployed. Despite social and personal benefits that some participants may gain while on employment programmes, there has been little evidence of strategic linkage into post-scheme employment. The result has been the creation of a low-wage sector - an integration economy - for the unemployed by depressing wages and employment conditions. Scheme participants are not entitled to the same conditions enjoyed by equivalent workers in terms of wages, holiday and sick pay or labour law. Rates of pay on part-time schemes have been broadly equivalent to the rate of welfare, calculated in a similar manner (e.g. allowances for dependants). The introduction of Community Employment in 1994 brought these welfare payments, or 'welfare wages', within the sphere of taxation and reinforcing a low-wage support policy by the Department of Social Welfare (now Social, Community and Family Affairs) which tops up low wages through the payment of in-work benefits and which has considerably contributed to the 'welfarisation of the labour market.

Entry into the labour market is 'shallow': direct employment schemes have provide a temporary break from signing on the live register and links between community based programmes and the labour market have been weak. Eligibility criteria relating to access to employment schemes mean that individuals cannot access another training or employment scheme within one year of finishing one (for lone parents, this is reduced to six months) and participants regularly rotate between welfare, welfare wages and wages.

A recently published survey, based on data from the early 1990s, of the performance of four different types of employment programme (general training; specific skills training; employment subsidies; direct employment schemes), showed that those participating in direct employment schemes fared the worst in respect of: the proportion of participants entering into employment; the proportion of time spent in employment; income from employment and progression to education and training (O'Connell and McGinnity, 1997). Twenty two per cent of direct employment scheme participants were found to be in employment within two months of the end of the programme, compared with 64 per cent of those who had been in receipt of employment subsidies and 58 per cent who participated in skills training. Nineteen per cent of people who had exited a direct employment scheme had returned to another one within 18 months (ibid.:84-86). Yet, although direct employment schemes are less performant in terms of the employment rate of participants, they do not necessarily compare unfavourably with other measures. Eighteen months following the end of skills training the employment rate of participants had dropped from 60 per cent to 58 per cent, while for those in receipt of employment subsidies the employment rate dropped from 64 to 63 per cent (ibid.: 85). O'Connell and McGinnity conclude that direct employment schemes, more often than not, are a permanent 'end station' for workers for whom no other solution appears to be feasible' (p. 21). In other words, as noted above, the key problem appears to reside in the features of the scheme itself, designed for the hard core or hard to place, rather than with the individual attributes of individuals.

2.5 POLICY RESPONSES

The outcome of growing pressure to reform direct employment schemes was the restructuring of Community Employment in 1996, when the WTJI was announced. This was undertaken with a view to better distinguishing between sub-groups of the unemployed - those with reasonable or poor job prospects - and so more effectively design special schemes for the long-term unemployed. Yet this restructuring has not dispelled pressure to reform, trim or abolish direct employment schemes and more recently Deloitte & Touche (1998) have recommended reducing the number of places on community employment, tightening of eligibility and a strengthening the orientation of the scheme towards market needs through improvements in training and certification, without, however, any corresponding move away from the community sector base despite its weak labour market linkages.

3. THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE:RATIONALE, DESIGN AND DELIVERY

3.1 RATIONALE AND DESIGN OF THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE

3.1(i) Eligibility

The WTJI emerged as a pilot initiative designed and targeted at a specifically-defined group of the long-term unemployed. The Report of the Task Force on Long Term Unemployment had recommended a highly targeted pilot option of 1,000 places aimed at those over 35 and over five years unemployed, for three years based on the going rate for the job (Department of the Tanaiste, 1995: 78). Any potential distortion of the labour market arising from the initiative, it was argued, could be minimised by targeting and by confining the initiative to areas where there was no effective local labour market.

The WTJI has emerged as a scheme for people who are on the live register and in receipt of unemployment payments (benefit or assistance) or Lone Parent Allowance (now One Parent Family Payment) for five years or more, who are aged 35 years or over and living in partnership areas in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. A provision was also made for the spouses of unemployed people entitled to participate in the WTJI to take up their partners' place if s/he did not wish to avail of it. Initially confined to 1,000 places, in 1997 the number of places on the Initiative was increased by a further 1,000 places, and in 1998 by a further 870 places (2,870 places in total). Although overall numbers of places on the WTJI are a fraction of those on Community Employment, the WTJI differs from Community Employment as a direct employment scheme in that it offers full-time employment for up to three years.

The 1996 restructuring of direct employment schemes introduced new eligibility criteria. Target groups were defined by duration of unemployment and age (under or over 35 years old). This was justified on the grounds that persons over the age of 35 are more likely to be long-term unemployed than people under 35 years of age. This is borne out by figures of registered unemployment (table 2.4), but it should be noted that there exist barriers to women's registration as unemployed which produce gendered outcomes in terms of eligibility for such schemes.

< 1 year 1-3 years > 3 years Line Total

Source: DEE, 1996, appendix 2.6, p. 100, derived from live register (October 1995). Note: calculated for men and women as a proportion of total unemployment.

Indeed, the Task Force appeared to have a specific group in mind for the WTJI: older, long-term unemployed male heads of household:

there is a group that have not been reached by the range of direct employment or training opportunities on offer and to whom existing opportunities are not attractive for a variety of reasons. In general, as well as being among the oldest and longest unemployed, these individuals live in urban areas of very high unemployment. Usually men and heads of households, they have become virtually completely detached from the normal economy and are very unlikely to find work there again. While some may have worked at some stage of their lives, others, often with young families, have never had a full-time job. What many of these individuals want is the opportunity to do a whole-time job which gives them and their family a way out of poverty and social exclusion. (Department of the Tanaiste, 1995, 87) (authors' italics)

3.1(ii) The Integration Economy and the Social Economy

Although the WTJI emerged from a consensus about the role of public employment programmes in combating labour market exclusion, the WTJI has reflected a tension between competing views about the nature and causes of social exclusion. The overriding strategic tensions within the WTJI can be characterised as relating to whether the WTJI is primarily a labour market integration scheme to improve the market orientation and employability of very long-term unemployed people, or a scheme which has a broader role to play in addressing poverty and social exclusion and improving quality of life.

In practice, the WTJI has reflected elements of each. Although it was introduced within a policy framework that structurally privileges market integration, the WTJI was specifically located within the social economy sector, as was made clear by FÁS:

The Job Initiative .is specifically designed to meet the needs of the social economy where valuable work remains undone because of the lack of independent resources to employ people. The social economy is that sector where the primary motivation is not the generation of financial profit but rather the development of the quality of life (FÁS Briefing, 20/5/96).

Although the social economy does not aim to replace existing public sector service provision (Social Economy Working Group, 1998: 4), it does have implications for the structure and form of service provision. Its 'point of entry' is the extension of the scope and range of services provided within the 'mixed economy of welfare' to meet the social needs which are currently being provided primarily through labour market measures or unpaid labour in areas of concentrated low incomes. It is concerned more with integrated local social and economic development than with improving market employability of participant workers. In this respect, its focus is broader than existing targeted measures to combat long-term unemployment. The difference in rationale underlying the WTJI and existing targeted labour market schemes is underlined by the presentation of these under separate headings in Partnership 2000 for Inclusion, Employment and Competitiveness (1996), which envisages the social economy as prime social inclusion measure.

3.1(iii) Area-Based Partnerships and Local Employment Service

The Task Force had envisaged a key role for area-based partnerships in delivering employment measures (Department of the Tanaiste, 1995: 122). This was reiterated by FÁS: The Job Initiative will be operated in close consultation with Area partnerships. Existing sponsors of Community Employment may apply to be Managing Agents and may designate jobs previously filled on a part-time basis through Community Employment (FÁS Briefing, 20/5/96).

The Task Force recommended that sponsors would design, in consultation with the Local Employment Service (LES), projects particularly well suited for the older long-term unemployed. Such projects could, for instance tie in with local development strategies supported by area-based partnerships (ABPs). Recruitment would be drawn from areas of high unemployment (i.e. ABP areas) with the work undertaken by WTJI participants being carried out in those areas. A key feature of the delivery of the Initiative is its inter-agency basis within an area-based strategy, mobilising FÁS, the Local Employment Service, area-based partnerships and local community groups.

3.2 DELIVERY OF THE WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE IN THE DUBLIN INNER CITY PARTNERSHIP AREA

3.2(i) Key Players

The key players in the implementation of the Initiative in Dublin were: FÁS, Baggot Street (programme design); FÁS, D'Olier Street (programme operations); DICP (operational consultation); the Department of Social Welfare; the local employment services located in the four quadrants of the DICP and collectively known as Inner City Employment Services (ICES); seven managing agents or sponsors and seventy-three local projects to whom individual participants were seconded.

3.2(ii) Eligibility

In the DICP area, lone parents were made eligible for the WTJI, and periods on Community Employment were counted as periods of unemployment. In effect five full years on the live register no longer remained the key criteria for entry.

3.2(iii) Sponsors/Managing Agents

The Task Force had recommended that existing Community Employment (CE) sponsors not be used because of the complexities of the Initiative. Instead it had envisaged that suitable sponsors would come forward from within the community and voluntary sectors. In line with these recommendations, the DICP did not target CE sponsors, although FÁS favoured using existing Community Employment sponsors and indeed in the other partnership areas CE sponsors in the community sector were targeted.

The quadrant networks of community and voluntary organisations were invited to submit a bid as 'managing agents' for the WTJI. Managing Agents - the new name for the sponsors - were to act as employers, seconding workers to the community and voluntary organisations in their quadrant The DICP opted to become involved in processing bids in collaboration with FÁS, rather than opting to become a managing agent itself. The networks were: the Inner City Organisations Network (ICON) (north east inner city); the South West Inner City Organisations Network (SWICN) (south west inner city); the North West Inner City Network (NWICN) (north-east inner city) and in the absence of a network in the south east, St. Andrews Resource Centre and Ringsend and District Community Centre (see appendix 1 for a profile of each of the managing agents).

Outside of the DICP area the majority of the WTJI managing agents are small-scale 15 people projects, with the exceptions of the local authorities. Local authorities have played a significant role in Limerick, Cork and South County Dublin, and, with the consent of trade unions, have employed 50 people on the WTJI. Work with the local authorities is primarily in the areas of landscaping and greening and recycling, and people on the WTJI have been treated as equal workers in relation to training opportunities and have been targeted for full-time for recruitment into employment within local authorities.

3.2(iv) Design and Allocation of Jobs

Community and Voluntary organisations who were interested in putting forward proposals, or bids, for jobs contacted their local managing agent. Each managing agent submitted a bid to FÁS through the DICP for the number of jobs they required or had identified. Instead of creating new projects in which to 'house' the workers, as envisaged by the Task Force, the DICP approach was to integrate workers into existing projects or organisations to avoid segregation.

The bids were drawn up through the organisation of local area meetings by the managing agents which were attended by local projects. The initiative was explained and the projects were asked to submit job descriptions to their appropriate Inner City Employment Office (ICES). For the Local Employment Centres these tasks presented a major challenge since they were in the early stages of their establishment. The subsequent process of liaison between ICES clients and local projects helped to establish, or at least heighten, the profiles of the individual ICES offices.

The DICP drew on FÁS guidelines in respect of job design. FÁS guidelines specified the following factors: jobs should contribute to local development; workers should receive good quality work experience; jobs should be for three years; jobs should create new or innovative work opportunities. The DICP prioritised the following criteria: the contribution of jobs to local area action plans for each quadrant; the appropriateness of jobs for the experience of the target groups; jobs should not displace or substitute for existing jobs. The Managing Agents and the ICES offices discussed the job proposals submitted and on several occasions requested projects to be more realistic about the scope of the initiative to meet their staffing requirements, particularly in relation to job descriptions that could have commanded greater remuneration in the open market. In the event, jobs were identified by the local projects on the basis of their service, development or administrative deficits which impeded their work in the local community.

The managing agents in the DICP area were awarded 226 jobs out of the 1,000 nationally. Jobs were awarded on the quality of the bids rather than on a quota or pro-rata basis.

Table 3.2 Managing Agents and Numbers of Workers Allocated

• ST. ANDREWS RESOURCE CENTRE 15
• ENERGY ACTION 15
• FOCUS IRELAND 30
• *INNER CITY ORGANISATIONS NETWORK (ICON) 75
• *NORTH WEST INNER CITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT26 (NWICDP)
• RINGSEND & DISTRICT COMMUNITY CENTRE 15
• SOUTH WEST INNER CITY NETWORK 50 (SWICN)
• TOTAL 226

Note: ICON and the NWICDP established limited companies to administer the initiative. ICON established The Employed Network (TEN) and the NWICDP established the Parishes Employment Network (PEN). Both companies drew on participating projects to form the management structures and allowed for worker representation on the boards of management.

The workers are located in 73 local development organisations or national charitable bodies. The 226 jobs were divided into 12 categories, with the top four categories being administration/clerical (54), community development (37), maintenance/caretakers (37) and security (23) (see appendix 2 for full details on the range of jobs).

3.2(v) Terms and Conditions of Employment

The Department of the Taoiseach had recommended that payment be based on the rate for the job. The NESF had recommended a payment of 250 p.w. for Initiative jobs in the Public sector and a lower rate of 200 p.w. in the voluntary and community sectors. These payments were regarded as a subsidy to cover wage and overhead costs. The Inner City Organisations' Network (ICON) recommended a rate of pay of 11,300 p.a., or approximately 217 p.w. The strategy within the DICP area was to set one overall job title (Community Support Worker) along with a fixed wage of 9,300 p.a. (4.59 per hour for a 39 hour week). This rate was based on the general operative rate paid by Dublin Corporation and the Community Employment assistant supervisor rate paid by FÁS.

WTJI workers, like other low-paid employees with families, can qualify for Family Income Supplement, an in-work benefit to top up low wages, and are entitled to Child Dependant Allowance for the first 13 weeks into the Initiative. The intention was that entitlement to FIS would replace automatic entitlement to secondary benefits which are a feature of all other options proposed. Subsequently, though, WTJI workers were permitted to retain their medical card for three years, in line with arrangements for the long-term unemployed (Social Welfare Act, 1996). Class A insurance is levied and employers are except from PRSI.

Even though the WTJI provides full time employment (contracts are offered on an annual renewable basis), participants are classed for the purposes of social protection as working on a regular part time basis. The Worker Regulation (regular part time employees) Act defines regular part time as having been in continuous service of an employer for at least thirteen weeks, and working at least eight hours a week. The unequal treatment of WTJI workers with other full-time workers is reflected in the frequent description of workers as participants by FÁS: managing agents are fully responsible for all aspects concerning the management and welfare of the participants through a participant development plan (italics added for emphasis) (Each year the managing agents are required by FÁS to produce a progression report on all their workers).

3.2(vi) Job Placement

Nationally the picture in terms of job placement is estimated somewhere in the region of 10 per cent. In Dublin North approximately 50 people on the WTJI have so far gained permanent employment from a total of 450, while five people have left the WTJI to go onto training or education programmes. Managing agents in the DICP have been keen to acknowledge that while some workers have accessed full time jobs, mainly in the public or social economy sector, this has come about as a result of the initiative of individuals. In some instances, jobs have been upgraded and a new post created, often as a result of successful and skilled negotiation directly with the employer. In one case, for example, a worker had been a Support Worker in drug addiction; through personal lobbying, with support from the managing agent and the local Drugs Task Force, the individual has been upgraded to Key Worker employed by the Eastern Health Board. Another example is where a woman, who had accessed the WTJI via the adult dependant transfer, working as an administrator with one of the local networks, became involved in a peer education group on drug addiction counselling, and has since been employed on a annual contract as a Drugs Outreach Worker. Both these examples have resulted in a substantial increase in wages for the individuals involved, but with relatively low employment security.

3.2(vii) Current Strategies

Notwithstanding cases of successful job placement or the fact that the provision of valuable services to the local community which also meet the needs of employing organisations or fill a vacuum in mainstream service provision gives status to individuals who had previously been denied access to the labour market (ADM, 1997: 35), the DICP managing agents felt that at least one third of workers would not be more 'employable' at the end of the WTJI and see the development of jobs in the social economy as the most likely end station for workers with limited labour market mobility:

Given the particular acute social problems inherent in a proportion of this target group, there is a need for access to the relevant statutory agencies providing specific personal social services that are beyond the resources of employers in the social economy (ADM, 1997: 31)

In terms of current strategies, TEN stated the need for recognition of the community development positions created through the WTJI and is advocating a strategy of lobbying with workers, projects and relevant state bodies to obtain the funding to 'mainstream' each position. It is seeking to develop social impact indicators such as the impact of jobs locally in relation to role models and health benefits, and through this, are trying to demonstrate that continued funding for some of the jobs will not 'distort' the labour market as some workers, because of their age and low qualifications will not be given employment opportunities in the mainstream labour market. TEN has offered individual workers the resources necessary to carry out their own individual job evaluations in order that the worker can gather the evidence required to be in a position to advocate continued funding for the job. The TEN advisory group, which advises TEN on personnel, mainstreaming and labour market issues, comprises representatives from FÁS, Dublin Corporation, ATGWU, the Eastern Health Board and the North Inner City Drugs Force. This group acts as advocates for the workers and as gatekeepers to jobs within their individual agencies.

Recent developments are promising: a closer relationship between Local Development Systems or Partnership Companies and local authorities has emerged from the WTJI. Dublin Corporation has created a Community Development with 38 posts and have lowered the labour market entry level through the creation of assistant community development workers posts. The Community Development section is also committed to participation on the management of labour market programmes (Dublin Corporation 1998). The Eastern Health Board have employed 10 community workers who are also committed to participating on the management of local community groups. It will require the development of this type of local municipal, statutory and local development co-operation to respond to the needs and demands, particularly in relation to job placement, which have been raised by the WTJI. All the managing agents are involved in the two Drugs Task Forces in the inner city, and relations with the EHB and Dublin Corporation are developing rapidly. The development of these relations may signal the future for shape of the social economy in the inner city and for the workers on the WTJI. How they are facilitated in the process is a key issue for the DICP and the WTJI and local municipal statutory bodies.

4. PROFILE OF WTJI WORKERS

This section presents data from the survey of the 225 workers on the WTJI, Workers Survey I. The survey covered age, sex, household structure, housing, education and duration of unemployment, and was designed to establish a broad socio-economic profile of the workers. Health questions were not included in this survey, but were done so for the Household Survey, which are included at the end of the section.

4.1 SEX

The majority of participants - 60 per cent - were men (Table 4.1).

4.2 AGE

The eligibility criteria for the WTJI stipulated age thresholds (35 years old or more). Table 4.2 shows that eleven per cent fell outside the age criteria of being 35 years or more. Four persons were 'too young' by a matter of months; seven persons were 'too young' by about one year. The youngest respondent was 30 years, the oldest was 59 years old. Average age was 43 years old. Over half - 55 per cent - of participants were aged between 35 and 45 years old.

Note: Base: 113. Percentages rounded to nearest tenth decimal place.

4.3 HOUSEHOLD TYPE

Single person households were the predominant household type at nearly 60 per cent of households, followed by lone parents and couples with dependent children (Table 4.3). Issues surrounding the classification of household types is discussed more fully in section five.

4.4 DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, is an established indicator of the risk of poverty. Households headed by an unemployed person have the highest risk of poverty of all household types: in 1994, 60 per cent of such households were below the 50 per cent poverty line (Callan et al, 1996). Risks of poverty increase for the long-term unemployed. Although this study did not aim to directly measure the extent of poverty among WTJI participants, it can be expected that a very high proportion of them are living in poverty since poverty and unemployment are associated and eligibility criteria stipulate unemployment for five or more years.

Table 4.4 shows that all of the respondents had been unemployed for five years or more. Just under half of the sample were unemployed for five to six years, while 15 per cent had been unemployed for ten years or more. In this respect, the WTJI was successful in recruiting people who were excluded from the labour market for a very long period of time.

Although numbers are small, women figure disproportionately among those who were unemployed for sixteen years or more, comprising two-thirds of this group, and are most likely to be women returners (Table 4.5).

Note: base 101.

4.5 EDUCATION

Early school leaving and low educational attainment are associated with a higher risk of unemployment, long-term unemployment and lower life-time earnings. The risk of unemployment, in particular long-term unemployment, is highest for those with either no qualifications at all or with a junior certificate. These risks are compounded by age, and are especially acute among older males (DEE, 1997a). In 1986 it was estimated 44 per cent of the inner city population left school before 15 years of age compared with 29 per cent nationally (McKeown 1991).

This study corroborates this picture. Thirty six percent of respondents in this survey (Table 4.6) had attended primary school only, while over 60 per cent had left secondary school by the age of sixteen. Just 25 per cent of the sample had stayed on at school after the age of 16. In part, early school leaving reflects the age of participants in this study whose age cohort would have had lower participation in education overall.

In relation to educational attainment, Table 4.7 shows that just under half - 47 per cent - of the respondents had no qualifications at all, 21 per cent had received the junior or inter-Cert, and 13 per cent had received their Leaving Cert. Nearly 20 per cent, however, were highly educated and had received a third-level qualification (including three people with a post-graduate qualification, one of whom has a doctorate).

The early school leaving and educational attainment is strongly associated. Thus, of the 24 per cent who left school between the age of thirteen and fifteen years of age, 92 per cent received no qualification. This suggests, however, that the remaining eight per cent of this group had returned to education at a later stage - half of whom received their Leaving Cert and half of whom received a third-level qualification. Of those who left school between the age of sixteen and eighteen one third received no qualification or their Inter-Cert, just over one third - 36 per cent - received their Leaving Cert and just under a quarter received a third-level qualification. The concept of lifelong learning is an issue that must be part of future initiatives in any endeavour of future labour market policies.

The only gender difference as regards educational attainment was that 65 per cent of men in this study received no qualification or their junior/inter Cert, compared with 71 per cent of women.

4.6 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Educational attainment, in particular a lack of qualifications, and long-term unemployment are important predictors of poverty. Table 4.8 shows those with no qualification or with a Junior/Inter Cert appear more frequently among those with much longer duration of unemployment, while those who received the Leaving Cert, and particularly those with a third-level qualification, are more concentrated among those who have a shorter duration of long-term unemployment.

4.7 HOUSING

Nolan et al (1998), using household survey data and Census of Population data, examined the spatial distribution of poverty and deprivation in Ireland, showing a strong association between location, housing tenure, unemployment and risk of poverty. Between 1987 and 1994, poverty rates for households in Dublin increased from 9 to 15 per cent (50 per cent income line) and from 17 to 27 per cent (using the 60 per cent income line). This marked a disproportionate increase in the poverty rate for households in Dublin over this period, but was particularly marked for households living in local authority rented accommodation; while those in local authority housing were on average 3.3 times more likely to be poor than those in other tenures, the differential in Dublin was 7.5:1 (p. 26).

Moreover, the disparity of the risk of poverty between those in local authority rented accommodation and those in private housing in Dublin has widened. Overall, 21 per cent of the poor live in local authority rented housing in Dublin and in 1994 two-thirds of households in this type of tenure were below the combined income and deprivation threshold. Households living in other tenure types have a much lower risk of poverty: sixteen per cent of households living in local authority purchased accommodation and 16 per cent of households living in private rented accommodation were poor, and those in owner-occupied housing had the lowest of all risk (6 per cent). Nolan et al conclude that while a growing proportion of poor households live in owner-occupied and private rented accommodation, this reflects more the increasing importance of these tenures than a growing risk of poverty.

In this survey, just under half - 45 per cent - of the respondents live in local authority rented housing, 27 per cent live in owner-occupied housing (in a small number of cases, the house was inherited) and 25 per cent live in private, rented accommodation (Table 4.9).

As regards the issue of tenure and household type, 63 per cent of couples with dependent children live in owner-occupied housing, 33 per cent live in Corporation rented accommodation, and 4 per cent lived in private rented accommodation. Lone parents and single person households rely on local authority and private rented accommodation: 64 per cent of lone parents and 51 per cent of single people live in Corporation rented accommodation, while 27 per cent of lone parents and 14 per cent of single people lived in private rented accommodation. Lone parents have a much higher probability of living in rented accommodation than couples with dependent children: 73 per cent compared with 37 per cent, respectively. The numbers of couples without children in the survey were small overall, but half of these lived in owner-occupied housing.

Housing tenure was, as other studies have shown, associated with the level of educational attainment (Table 4.10). Eighty-six per cent of respondents living in rented corporation housing had no qualifications or just their inter-Cert, compared with 68 per cent of the survey overall. Those living in the private rented sector had a higher level of educational attainment: 30 per cent had received their Leaving Cert and 18 per cent had a third level qualification (compared with 13 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively, in the survey). Two thirds of respondents living in owner-occupied housing had no qualification or had attained their Leaving Cert (the same proportion as the sample).

Table 4.10 suggests that a large minority - nearly 40 per cent - of the WTJI workers exhibit three key poverty predictors: long-term unemployment, no or very low educational attainment, residency in/tenancy of local authority housing. An even larger proportion - 70 per cent - have accumulated two disadvantages which are also key predictors of poverty: long-term unemployment and no or very low educational attainment.

4.8 HEALTH

Health questions were not asked in the general survey of workers, but were included in the smaller household study in which 6 partners (from a total of ten workers living as couples) and thirty workers participated. Forty per cent of workers suffered from health problems, these problems ranged from chest trouble, respiratory illnesses and thyroid trouble to indigestion. Two of the partners suffered from poor health, health problems included arthritis, rheumatism and high blood pressure. Notwithstanding, 90 per cent of workers reported good health. A high percentage of workers (63 per cent) suffered from stress, depression, sleeping problems or lack of confidence, stress and lack of confidence was also a problem shared by the partners in the study. Committing suicide was seen as an attractive option for two workers and a partner.

4.9 KEY CHARACTERISTICS

The data from this general survey of the key socio-economic characteristics of the workers suggests that the WTJI has been successful in attracting workers whose households have been found to have the highest risks of poverty: those whose head has been unemployed for a very long period; households with dependent children and single adult households. Chapter six explores the composition of these households and inter-household networks and ties in more detail. The data also suggests that a significant proportion of workers on the WTJI suffer from three key disadvantages (long-term unemployment, no or very low levels of educational qualifications and living in rented local authority accommodation), and a large majority from two disadvantages (long term unemployment and no or very low levels of educational qualification).

5. EMPLOYMENT TRAJECTORIES AND ATTITUDES

Drawing on data from the survey of sixty workers, Workers Survey II, this section focuses on the labour market trajectories of the WTJI workers prior to entering the scheme, their attitudes to the WTJI compared with other employment schemes, their employment attitudes and preferences.

5.1 LABOUR MARKET STATUS PRIOR TO WTJI

Forty per cent of workers had been recruited directly from the live register, 42 per cent from a FÁS scheme (probably Community Employment), while 5 per cent were working in the home (labour market returners) (Table 5.1).

The last job of over half - 56 per cent - of the respondents had been on a full-time basis, 35 per cent part-time and nearly 9 per cent on a casual basis or in the informal economy. Eight per cent had worked in the informal economy in the last year.

5.2 TRAINING SCHEMES

The respondents had long experience of participation in training and employment schemes, indeed appeared to have rotated between these and spells of unemployment. Seventy three per cent had participated in a FÁS scheme, half of whom had done so two to three times. Sixty cent of respondents had spent at least one year on a Community Employment scheme. Of these, just under two thirds - 63 per cent - had spent between two and three years on a community employment scheme, and nearly one fifth - 18 per cent - had spent four years or more on one. Sixteen percent had spent at least one year on a community-training workshop.

The vast majority of workers preferred on-the-job training to training courses: 80 per cent believed that training courses were ineffective, while all thought that training should be related to the work they are doing. This is despite the fact that 67 per cent of workers had some vocational qualification (training certificate, extra-mural diploma).

5.3 ATTITUDES TO WHOLE-TIME JOBS INITIATIVE

Give the experience of most respondents of training and employment schemes, in particular Community Employment, we examined workers views of such schemes. Workers were asked whether they thought jobs on the WTJI are real jobs, and to compare with Community Employment (Table 5.2). Nearly 70 per cent of respondents thought that WTJI were real working jobs, compared with just under half in the case of Community Employment. Given their long-term exclusion from employment in the market sector and half of the workers having spent two years or more on Community Employment on a part-time basis, the opportunity for a full-time position for a duration of three years was clearly an attractive option.

This optimism regarding the WTJI as a scheme which provided a real job rather than a scheme placement, translated into higher expectations about outcomes for them. Eight-four per cent of respondents believed that the WTJI would improve their chances of work subsequently, while 11 per cent thought it would make no difference and 5 per cent did not know. This optimism stands in contrast with the views of managing agents who believed that about one in three participants would not be employable vis-a-vis the market sector at the end of the WTJI (see Section 3.2 (vii)).

5.4 BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT

In addition to examining workers attitudes to employment and training initiatives, the study also sought to examine the attitudes and perceived barriers to gaining employment. Nine per cent felt they had been discriminated against on the grounds of having a criminal record or a disability. Forty one per cent felt they lacked educational qualifications to compete in the labour market - and corresponds to very low levels of educational attainment of the workers overall - but 80 per cent expressed a desire to continue their education. (Evidence that workers lack of education is a barrier to employment was also indicated in the household survey in which more than half of the workers (56 per cent) felt that the standard of education that their children were receiving was much higher now - maths and Irish were seen as particularly difficult and that this was preventing them from helping their children with homework).

In the Workers Survey II respondents were asked to rank in terms of importance what they considered to be barriers to employment (Table 5.3). Of interest is that, while they identified barriers to employment which they considered to be of at least some importance, all agreed that it is not difficult to get a job if you really want one.

5.5 EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCES

The respondents show signs of discouragement from pursuing employment options in the private and public sectors. The community sector was by far the preferred sector as an employment destination: two thirds preferred to undertake local community work (Table 5.4). This may reflect their extensive involvement in community work (see section 6) and acquired skills and experience. Indeed, 84 per cent believed that participating in the WTJI complemented their community work (the remainder believed it was a distraction).

If this orientation towards community work can be interpreted as indicative of a high degree of antipathy on the part of the workers towards private sector employment, consequently, labour market schemes designed with a view to getting them job-ready for this sector are likely to meet with some resistance (even if it is accepted that employers are prepared to recruit them).

The data from the second survey of workers (Workers Survey II) on which this section has drawn highlight that workers on the WTJI have not only availed of state training and employment schemes but have maintained contact with the work environment, be it through direct employment schemes (notably Community employment). In this sense, it may be concluded that while they are excluded from formal employment, they are not only economically active but, as section 6 will show, are highly socially integrated within their communities principally through involvement in (most unpaid) community work. In relation to the WTJI, workers were optimistic about their employment prospects at the end of it. For many, participation in the WTJI would have represented a move from unpaid community work to paid employment in the community. Clearly, the community sector was the preferred destination for most workers, followed by the public and, lastly, the market sector.

6. WORKERS HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT

The prevailing approach to social and economic integration emphasises the characteristics and attitudes of individuals, often at the expense of exploring the social and community context within which they live. The study therefore examined the WTJI workers familial and community context with a view to understanding the structure of household relations, how these may influence behaviour and attitudes towards work, and the level of participation in the community. The data used in this section draws on the Workers Survey II and the Household Survey. The section is organised into four main parts: household composition; children; the level and nature of community involvement, and gaps in service provision identified by the workers and their partners.

6.1 MARITAL STATUS, HOUSEHOLD TYPE AND HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION

The Workers Survey II shows that the single largest category of workers are single people (56 per cent), twenty per cent of the workers surveyed are married (no children), 17 per cent are lone parents, and just 5 per cent are married with children. If the intention was to target married fathers with dependent children, then it would appear that the Initiative had failed. What stands out, however, is that conventional categories of household type fail to capture the complexity of living arrangements and the extent of parenthood among workers on the WTJI and, by extension, the number of child dependants.

First, conventional categories of household type fail to capture inter-generational households: fourteen per cent of respondents live with their relatives. These are for the most part workers who are 'separated' from partners and are now living with their non-dependent (adult) children, often within the same local authority housing estate, or in one case lone mother living with her parents.

Second, although 75 per cent of the single category had no child dependants, 25 per cent were non-resident parents of dependent children (the overwhelming majority of whom were fathers). Indeed, overall, 53 per cent of workers have child dependants if non-resident parents are taken into account (compared with 39 per cent if residency with children is used). The evidence would therefore suggest that the WTJI has been relatively successful in attracting workers with child dependants. The Workers Survey II shows that of 64 respondents, the total number of child dependants is 67 (eight workers with one child, fifteen workers with two children, five workers with three children and 4 workers with four children).

(Source: Workers Survey II)

6.2 CHILDREN

All of the children are either in the education system or in creche's; not one child relies solely on the household for its care and development. Thus, eight children attend creche's (mainly on a part-time basis), 34 attend primary school, 25 attend secondary school. Of those workers with children of working age, 40 per cent of the children were unemployed, 20 per cent were on FÁS schemes and only 40 per cent were in full-time employment. In total, 60 per cent of workers adult children were also reliant on labour market policies - despite a buoyant economy it highlights that unemployment is affecting the same families across generations.

6.3 HOUSEHOLD INCOME

Fifty eight per cent of respondents (Household Survey) stated that payments from the WTJI was the households only source of income. Of the remaining, 42 per cent, who had another source of income, this was from: wages from partner (12.5 per cent), from the informal economy (3 per cent) and other social welfare payments (19 per cent). All workers, except one, responded that the WTJI had improved the net income going into the household.

6.4 COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

The level of volunteering and unpaid involvement in the voluntary and community sector is over twice the rate of the national average. Whereas 32 per cent of the national population had given their services without pay to a voluntary organisation sometime in the past, and 18 per cent are currently doing so (Powell and Guerin, 1997), 75 per cent of workers in our study either had been or were currently involved in activities in their local community.

This involvement ranged from participation in sports events, charitable events, community organisations, school activities and informal work such as helping neighbours. Of these activities involvement in community organisations was the most popular, with 30 per cent of workers involved in their community in this way. On average eight days a month were spent on these activities by workers, although for 20 per cent of workers this ranged from ten to thirty days.

The survey highlighted that activities in the community were largely carried out on a voluntary/unpaid basis: just one in eight had undertaken community work on a paid basis. Translating these voluntary commitments into an economically viable project which meets local needs has potential benefit for the social economy at large.

6.5 GAPS IN SERVICE PROVISION

Sixty-three per cent of workers reported gaps in service provision. Services for the elderly, services for the disabled and a drugs clinic or after care programme were additional services that were identified (table 6.3). More than half of these (53 per cent) would like additional or improved child care services. Lack of public provision of child care facilities in disadvantaged areas in Ireland is an issue that has been put on the public agenda in the 1990s (McKeown & FitzGerald, 1997). Several inner city organisations have highlighted this problem and identified it as a factor preventing many women from taking up employment (ICON, 1994). The Pilot Child Care Initiative funded by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform was announced in January 1994. This Initiative has helped to push child care higher up on the agenda of local partnerships.

7. CONCLUSIONS

This study has examined the emergence, development and implementation of the pilot WTJI in the Dublin Inner City Partnership. The WTJI emerged against a background of a number of policy trends, notably local economic and social development and service delivery, multi- and inter-agency responses to social exclusion, and targeted interventions. These have attempted to promote innovative local responses to poverty and social exclusion. The WTJI is a potentially valuable asset in this search for social inclusion. Although the WTJI has been designed primarily as a response to long-term unemployment and has been influenced by the prevailing approach to labour market integration, it has much wider relevance, and implications, for social exclusion policy on a local and national level.

The DICP approach has been to explicitly locate the WTJI within the social economy as part of a broader strategy to promote integrated and inclusive social and economic development. The social economy approach is premised on stimulating demand for labour and matching this to labour supply, in particular with a view to providing employment for, and raising the income of, the poorest households while promoting the development of locally coordinated responses and services which meet previously unmet and/or new needs. In this respect, it offers the possibility of a radical break from the pitfalls of supply-oriented direct employment schemes that have proved ineffective as market-oriented, labour market integration measures and which have contributed to the marginalisation of excluded groups. Above all it offers an opportunity to construct models of social and economic integration. In addition, by aiming to stimulate job creation in the local service sector and matching these jobs with the skills and experience of the very long-term unemployed, the WTJI has the potential of providing long-term economic and social benefits to the local community as whole above and beyond the benefits to individual workers and their households.

Our study did not attempt to measure or quantify these benefits, but instead focused on the performance of the WTJI in terms of including the most disadvantaged groups and with an overall view to understanding its current and potential role as an anti-poverty and anti-social exclusion strategy. The main findings from the study are highlighted below.

• The WTJI was relatively successful in attracting individuals who had been excluded from employment for a very long period of time. Almost half of the workers had been unemployed between five and six years, 15 per cent had not been employed for ten years or more. The average age of workers was 43 years old; 60 per cent of workers were men.
• The WTJI was successful in including workers in households which have been found to have the highest risk of poverty: those with dependent children and single adult households. However, these types of household were found not to be mutually exclusive and an important proportion of single person household were comprised of non-resident fathers who had extensive contact with their children. In this sense, administrative categories of household type which do not recognise complex patterns of inter-household relations will under-estimate both the proportion of participants falling within the target group and the potential impact of participation in the WTJI on child poverty.
• Forty per cent of workers on the WTJI accumulated three important predictors of poverty: long-term unemployment, no or very low educational attainment and residency in local authority housing. Seventy per cent accumulated two key predictors: long-term unemployment and low educational attainment.
• A high proportion - 60 per cent - of the adult children of the workers on the WTJI were unemployed or participating in a FÁS scheme.
• Although WTJI workers had been excluded from employment, they had maintained a relatively high degree of contact with the workplace through regular, indeed repeated, participation in training and employment schemes, involvement in community organisations and local service provision.
• Indeed, very high levels of (unpaid) involvement in the community alongside strong familial ties and networks suggests a high level of social integration.
• Workers were favourably inclined to the WTJI and had high expectations that their employment prospects would be improved as a result of participation in it. The workers were oriented towards the community sector as a desired destination and most did not wish to seek employment in the market sector, in contrast with the current policy orientation towards the latter sector.
• Managing agents highlighted that many of these workers long-term employment prospects would, however, depend entirely on the future development of the WTJI and the social economy.
• The key gaps in local services identified by the survey respondents were in the areas of eldercare, child-care, provision for disabled people and for drug users. The strong orientation towards the community sector was reflected in the preference for such services to be provided on a collective level by community organisations. This suggests the potential of community-based and -provided services as a key strand of local or indigenous economic development.

The debate about the future of the WTJI is understandably preoccupied with the retention of the 1,000 workers in their jobs and relatedly with the mainstreaming of social economy jobs. Key issues to be addressed are the improvement of pay and working conditions of workers, otherwise current and future social economy workers will continue to be treated less favourably than, and ultimately unequally to, workers in the public and private sectors. By extension, the danger is that the social economy will develop as a residual employment sector, either serving to mop up the consequences of the market economy or else servicing the market sector.

The future of the WTJI is, therefore, intricately linked to the content and direction of the social economy itself. Presently, the debate on the social economy has primarily become focused on its relationship to market forces rather than with how to broaden the range of collective services to meet unmet needs or new needs. The social economy, finally, is an important, if not a key, element within an overall strategy to promote social and economic inclusion and community regeneration particularly within areas in which the local labour market has collapsed. The future of the WTJI will depend on how successfully the social economy itself is regarded as both economically viable and socially valuable.

References

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• Commission on The Family (1998), Strengthening Families for Life, Stationery Office: Dublin.
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Appendices

Appendix 1 Profile of Managing Agents

St Andrews Resource Centre.

The centre is a strong physical and cultural presence in the Pearse Street City Quay area, and houses the Local Employment Service (ICES). Various formal and informal social services are on offer on a reliable basis, including a vibrant centre for older people. The building is thoroughly utilised both day and evenings. The centre is part of the South East Network and actively engaged with local residents groups. In relation to the development of the social economy the centre has helped significantly to define the needs of a social economy and produced a report entitled The Greening Initiative, (St. Andrews 1997) which it hopes to use to develop a project strategy with DICP and Dublin Corporation.

Ringsend District and Community Centre (RDCC)

In a similar way that St. Andrews serves the City Quay/Pearse Street area, the RDCC serves the Ringsend/Irishtown areas. The Centre is large but always under pressure to meet the ever growing demand for its services particular in relation to child care. The centre has plans to physically expand to meet the growing demand. The RDCC is a key player in the development of the South East Network. Both centre are integral elements of the local neighbourhood both in relation to management, staff and services users.

Energy Action

Energy Action seeks to meet the needs encountered by those suffering from fuel poverty. It carries out work on a semi-commercial basis with support through service agreements and labour supply. The strength of energy action is that the work is accessible to the long-term unemployed and task specific training is given. Energy Action have a non-creaming policy taking very hard to place workers, and training them in a traditional work oriented centre.

Focus Ireland

Focus is one of the major national organisations to serve people out of home, or homeless. It has expertise in training graduates in preparation for formal social work qualifications. Focus offers a range of services to the homeless and adopts a community development approach to its work.

SWICN

The South West Inner City Network (SWICN), is based in the Liberties and consists of some fifty local projects and organisations. SWICN has close links with the St. Nicholas Of Myra Community Centre which functions in a similar way to the RDCC, and St. Andrews. All these projects have a heritage of local support older people. The development of SWICN has brought the projects of the liberties together to increase the density of local community structures and engage with Dublin Corporation and Statutory bodies in a meaningful way.

ICON

Inner City Organisations Network (ICON) is a similar organisation to SWICN although would have a much greater membership from the statutory projects and a longer history. This reflects the success of the north east inner city in stimulating the statutory delivered services. The Neighbourhood Youth Projects (EHB) and non-statutory projects in the locality have a long history of co-operation, which in turn provide the historical basis for the development of ICON. ICON established The Employment Network (TEN) made up of representatives from the participating projects on the WTJI to administer the pilot phase.

NWICN

In a similar fashion to ICON and SWICN the North West Inner City Network (NWICN) is a network of projects serving the Markets and Stoneybatter areas. NWICN has recently had the addition of two local Community Development projects.

Networks and the Social Economy

All three established networks SWICN, ICON, NWICN and to a certain degree SEN are engaged in local development and Dublin Corporation Development Plans for their respective areas. The networks provide the basis for community representation onto the DICP and for the subsequent delivery of its actions. It is estimated that approximately 2000 people interface closely with the local networks.

Appendix 2 WTJI jobs

Appendix 3 The Surveys

Note: sex of the respondents was unidentified in seven cases (TEN, 5; SWICN 2).

NICOLA YEATES, AISLING BYRNE, MICK RUSH

MARCH, 1999

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